


in dreams

by anirondack



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Blow Jobs, Boot Worship, Dry Humping, Face Slapping, Grinding, Gunplay, Hand Jobs, Jesper's Crush On Kaz, Kissing, M/M, Praise Kink, Sexual Fantasy, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anirondack/pseuds/anirondack
Summary: In dreams, it goes like this.





	in dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mochroimanam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochroimanam/gifts).



> i can't believe i'm posting this but hey everyone it's me barreling into the six of crows tag with some self-indulgent jesper/kaz kink for [mochroimanam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mochroimanam/)! 
> 
> tws in the end notes if any of the tags are something that might bother you

 

In dreams, it goes like this:

Jesper has never seen Kaz’s hands. Jesper has never seen Kaz’s legs. He imagines that they are both pale, missing the weather-worn roughage that turns Kaz's face brown in the summers. Slender, maybe. Kaz has long, thin fingers, this much Jesper knows - he’s seen the gloves, with or without the hands in them. They are long and thin, just like Kaz’s fingers, just like Kaz.

Jesper has never seen Kaz’s cock, but he imagines that it is much the same.

“Open,” Kaz orders, and Jesper’s lips are already parted, folded over his teeth and slick with spit. He's on his knees and Kaz is on the bed - Jesper’s bed, he’s not allowed in Kaz’s bedroom - sitting above him, with his thighs parted, one leg outstretched and his cane stretched next to it. Jesper is kneeling between his feet and he has been for a while. His floor is hard, as all the floors in the Slat are - softer wood lets more cold in - and his knees are already bruised. There’s a thin rug, somewhere behind him, but Kaz had forgone it and Jesper isn’t going to bring it up.

Kaz’s hand leaves Jesper’s hair and reaches down for the buttons of his own trousers. He pops them one-handed, one by one, then raises himself up an inch to push the waistband of his suit trousers under his ass. Jesper catches a flash of dark hair disappearing into the vee of Kaz’s pants before Kaz’s hand covers it; he reaches in and pulls his cock out and leans forward to rest it on Jesper’s lower lip.

“Wider,” Kaz says, and Jesper stretches his jaw, trying to keep his tongue pressed to the bottom of his mouth instead of flicking it out like he wants. Kaz is like a cornered animal sometimes, and Jesper is too cautious and too selfish to scare him off. “Breathe.” Jesper sucks in a breath, and then Kaz curls his fingers into Jesper’s hair and shoves him down as hard as he can.

Jesper chokes. He gags. He tries to breathe, because he’s sure as hell not going to pull back, and even if he were to try, he probably couldn’t manage it. Kaz’s hand is firm at the back of Jesper’s neck, one gloved finger scratching lightly at the place where hair stops and bare skin begins, holding Jesper down. Jesper squeezes his eyes shut as his throat works frantically to accommodate the intrusion. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t know what would be better, Kaz coming undone or Kaz looking as neatly put together and cold as ever.

“Suck,” Kaz commands, and Jesper does. Kaz lets up some of the pressure on the back of Jesper’s neck, and Jesper rises up a little. His vision separates himself from Kaz’s stomach to the strip of skin between his trousers and his shirt, which is bisected neatly by his cock. Jesper wishes he’d had more time to look at it - he appreciates a good dick, and based on the way Kaz feels in his mouth, this is a good one. He sucks, his cheeks hollowing a little, his tongue working firmly under the head of Kaz’s cock as well as it can when it’s in the back of his mouth, and Kaz hisses. Satisfaction blooms in Jesper like flowers.

“Yes. Harder.” Jesper’s head bobs, pressing down to swallow and then rising up and pressing down again. He remembers how to breathe, how to inhale through his nose when his windpipe is open and how to exhale in jerky moans and make his lips vibrate when he can’t find any oxygen. Inhale, down, exhale, exhale, exhale, and rise again. Saliva builds in his mouth and his lips are sloppy and they make wet noises when Kaz’s hips kick up a little, pressing up into Jesper’s mouth instead of pressing Jesper down.

Jesper shivers all over, heat rolling down his spine. He’s hard too, but it’s less important. He can pleasure himself five times a day if he wants; getting Kaz Brekker’s cock in his mouth could be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“Jesper,” Kaz says, his voice stretched thin and raspy. Does he always sound like that? Jesper’s eyes dart back and forth beneath closed lids. He wants Kaz to talk. He wants Kaz to hiss his name. He wants Kaz to thrust into his mouth and let Jesper give him what he wants. He wants Kaz to fall apart because of him, and then watch as he puts himself back together before Jesper’s eyes.

“Jesper,” Kaz says, a bit more insistently. Jesper’s eyes flutter open and he looks up. Kaz is arched forward a little, showing off the hollows of his chest under his neat shirt. The hand that’s not in Jesper’s hair is on the bed, propping Kaz up. Kaz looks every inch the usual hard, black streak of a criminal that he always does, except for the bend of his back and the flush that’s on his cheeks, slipping down his neck. Jesper’s eyes trail down to Kaz’s shirt collar, and he wants to taste that flush, though he knows he probably never will.

Kaz does not say _Jesper_ a third time. He says _Jes_ with a hang on the _s_ like the rest of the word decided to leave halfway through, and then Jesper’s mouth is flooded. Kaz doesn’t force Jesper to choke on it, so Jesper pulls back enough that the head of Kaz’s cock is on his tongue instead of in the back of his throat. Kaz gifts Jesper with a very soft moan and twitches in Jesper’s mouth, spilling hot and salt and bitterness, and Jesper swallows greedily. How many other Dregs have had this pleasure? All of them, perhaps, or maybe even none of them. Maybe Jesper is the first.

Kaz clears his throat softly, and then again. “Is there any left?” he asks, voice even, but he’s still shaking a little, his cock still in Jesper’s mouth. Jesper’s tongue slides along the slit, then opens his mouth. He lets Kaz’s cock fall past his lips and shows off the come still on his tongue.

Kaz holds his palm out. “Spit.”

Jesper blinks.

“I said spit.”

Jesper spits the rest of the come into the palm of Kaz’s glove. He stares at it, slightly translucent white, saliva around the edges. Inelegant, disgusting - things Jesper likes that Kaz deals with because he has to. Jesper doesn’t mind being made a mess, but Kaz always wants something when he gets down in the dirt.

Kaz shoves himself off the bed and lands on his knees on the floor. Jesper’s eyes dart down, and then back up, and then Kaz is shoving his thighs apart one handed. Jesper barely manages to keep from asking _what are you doing?_ because it’s pretty obvious what Kaz is doing when his palm finds the bulge in Jesper’s trousers and grinds down hard. Jesper makes an inelegant sound and Kaz, without smiling, looks pleased.

He flicks the buttons of Jesper’s trousers open even faster than his own, and then warm, soft leather is tugging Jesper free from his fabric prison. Jesper sighs in relief, and then Kaz’s other hand closes around him, wet and strong and tight. Jesper shudders and lets his head fall back for a second, and then tilts it upright again, fast enough that Kaz doesn’t even have to chastise him.

Kaz strokes him off fast, firm, just a little too tight but it wouldn’t be Kaz if he made things perfectly comfortable. It’s delicious, the way the leather rubs and chafes even with something to ease the way. Kaz’s knees hold Jesper’s apart, and Kaz’s eyes bore directly into Jesper’s. Jesper feels pinned, frozen, unable to do anything, even help, but Kaz probably doesn’t want him to. He could lunge forward and wrap a hand around the back of Kaz’s neck and crush their mouths together, if he didn’t mind the idea of a swift death. He could reach for Kaz’s cock again, touch him and see if he was still hard or hard a second time - Kaz is Jesper’s age, he knows it wouldn’t be out of the question. He could run his hand up the flat, well-tailored plane of Kaz’s chest and find his nipples under his shirt and the muscles that he hides easily under his mercher costumes and make him shrug off the jacket he’s still wearing and the shirt underneath and let Kaz have him on the floor, fucking splinters into his back.

Jesper doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he moans, and he bucks, and he comes in thick pulses all over Kaz’s glove and his own thigh.

Kaz looks down. Jesper freezes, and then pants. He tries to catch his breath as Kaz squeezes his cock one last time, then slowly withdraws his hand and holds it up to the light. He examines white on black, the pattern of fluid on fabric, and then holds his hand in front of Jesper’s face. Jesper has no shame in licking it all off; living in the Barrel has taught him to clean up his own messes.

Kaz looks, if not pleased, then satisfied. He reaches back behind him and uses the bed as leverage to push himself upright. Somehow, at some point, he’d tucked himself away and rebuttoned his trousers. Of course he had. Jesper reaches down and picks up the cane and holds it out, the crow facing toward Kaz. Kaz takes it with a small nod that means a lot of things, and then he’s sweeping out of Jesper’s bedroom, letting the door bang shut behind him on Jesper, still on his knees, looking significantly less put together.

 

~

 

In dreams, it goes like this:

The stairwell of the Slat and Jesper’s ears echo with the glorious sound of the crack of leather against skin. Jesper’s jaw aches as his neck is twisted to the side with the force of a back-handed slap, and the breath he lets out is a laugh as he turns back. He rolls his neck on his shoulders and looks up, only to be slapped in the other direction, even harder.

“I didn’t tell you to look at me,” Kaz says, soft. Dangerous.

“Didn’t tell me not to.”

Kaz spits in his lap.

Jesper’s gaze tracks down slowly. He takes in all of Kaz, from the open collar of his shirt to the dirty scuffs of his boots, along the floor and to his own thighs, wrapped in lurid green fabric with one dark spot now. He reaches down and wipes it off, and then something hard collides with his jaw.

Jesper shouts as he crumples onto the ground. He catches himself on one arm, which will probably bruise, and looks up to see Kaz’s cane where Jesper’s head used to be. The crow’s head stares at him, and Kaz’s eyes burn above it.

Jesper works his jaw, then swallows. He slowly pushes himself back up and sits on his heels. Kaz is still, waiting, seeing what Jesper will do.

Jesper looks up. He raises his eyebrows and meets Kaz’s gaze and holds it. “Ow.”

Kaz strikes him again, a heavy thud of palm against cheek that reverberates through Jesper’s whole body. Threads of resistance are breaking inside him one by one - he doesn’t know why he sometimes needs Kaz to cut them all first, but he does, and Kaz is nothing but obliging when someone wants to get hurt. Jesper catches himself with a palm on the ground and takes a few slow breaths through his nose before he straightens up again. He sniffs, once, rolls his shoulders, and looks back up.

“Pathetic,” Kaz says. He kicks at the inside of Jesper’s thigh. Jesper grunts, and Kaz kicks again until Jesper’s thighs spread to his satisfaction. He leans both hands on his cane and peers down at Jesper, Jesper’s chest, the front of Jesper’s trousers, which are already tenting. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Jesper says, like he doesn’t know.

Kaz raises his cane and prods at the outline of Jesper’s cock with the end of it, not terribly gently. Jesper winces and tries very hard not to move. “I’d like you to tell me that’s a third gun.”

Jesper is silent.

“Disgusting,” Kaz says distastefully. He pokes Jesper again, harder, and Jesper hisses loudly through his teeth. His thighs tremble a little, instinctively trying to pull together, but he doesn’t let them. Kaz waits, just watching for a moment, and then moves his cane to tap one of the holsters on Jesper’s thigh. “Drop these.”

“Kaz–”

“Now.” Kaz stares down at Jesper, and Jesper looks back, almost pleading, for a moment before he sighs. He slides his revolvers out of their holsters and sets them delicately down in front of him. Kaz immediately puts his foot on one and kicks it behind them. Jesper opens his mouth to protest but, in a flash, Kaz has the other gun in his hand and is aiming it directly down Jesper’s throat. Jesper’s eyes widen and he slowly closes his mouth again. “You think you deserve these.”

It’s a question and a statement all tangled together, and Jesper doesn’t know the answer. He loves his guns, cares for them almost religiously. They’ve saved him more times than he can count, and he never misses when he uses them. They’re so intertwined with being _Jesper_ that Jesper can’t really separate _deserve_ from _need_.

That wasn’t the question anyway.

“I don’t,” Kaz says after another moment of silence. “These are Zemeni made, aren’t they?”

Jesper nods once.

“Just like you. Fortunately, these always work. Unlike their tenant.”

“Tenant–”

“You,” Kaz says. “You’re not stupid. You know that I own these.” He strokes his thumb down the edge of the grip, almost lovingly. “And I own you. Everything you are belongs to me. Everything in this _city_ belongs to me.”

Jesper’s mouth is stuck open. He can’t remember how to close it.

“Don’t stare. It’s impolite.” The corner of Kaz’s mouth quirks up a little, and then he hefts his cane in his hand and brings it down over Jesper’s shoulders.

Jesper gasps as he drops forward, throwing his hands out in front of him to catch himself. Pain blossoms on his back like wings, and he pants a few times to the view of Kaz’s boots. He blinks at them as his vision swims, and then the end of Kaz’s cane is pressing at the nape of Jesper’s neck, driving him further and further down until his cheek is grinding against the floor. From here, he can see the sole of Kaz’s boot and the edge of the stairs that lead up to all the bedrooms and not much else.

“There you go,” Kaz says. “That’s where you belong.” He shifts his foot to tap it lightly against Jesper’s face. It’s a pretty good face; maybe even Kaz doesn’t want to ruin it.

Jesper’s mouth opens and closes. He wants to speak but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to explain the blissful blankness that comes from being taken down to his bases by the bastard of the Barrel. He doesn’t know why it feels euphoric to be humiliated, like the feeling when he raises his revolvers in a fight and the world quiets. The press of Kaz’s cane against the base of Jesper’s neck makes it very hard to think, and his lips stay parted.

“Make yourself useful,” Kaz says. He nudges Jesper’s open mouth with his boot. Jesper flinches away from it and Kaz digs down with his cane. “Don’t you want to be useful?”

Jesper does want to be useful, does want to be used - and he parts his lips wider, lets his tongue fall out, and runs it along the side of the sole of Kaz’s boot.

His first impression is salt. Everything in Ketterdam tastes like salt, of course - Kerch is a waterlogged country, and Ketterdam is a waterlogged city. Jesper closes his eyes and he can smell the harbors and the air rushing over them. A bit of plant, a bit of decay, and a lot of salt. Kaz was at the docks today, and the salt is mixed with iron.

There’s iron, but not the type of iron in blood. Jesper’s bitten through his own lips enough to know what blood tastes like. This is duller - metallic in its base, perhaps through some shavings of steel around some metal worker. And under that is flour, a dry sort of wheat flavor that reminds Jesper of bread. To the docks, from the streets, from the bakery for lunch. He can reconstruct Kaz’s entire day. He knows everywhere he went. His mind is so clear, free of everything that usually lives in it.

He licks Kaz’s boot and feels little shame. It’s humiliating, and it would be even worse if any other Dreg came home and walked through the front door to find this. But Jesper doesn’t mind it, because it’s quiet. The black leather loses its dust and becomes shiny, and Jesper’s mind is blissfully silent. He doesn’t need to gamble. He doesn’t need to drink. He doesn’t need to rip his revolvers from Kaz and go find a fight.

The soft click of the safety of a gun being turned off clicks above Jesper’s head and Jesper’s heart stops beating.

He looks up, slowly, and the gun is pointed directly at his face again. It’s hard to look past the barrel, but he does, straight into Kaz’s eyes. Kaz doesn’t move the gun, but he jerks his chin, and Jesper slowly rises back onto his knees. There’s dirt on his cheek now, but he doesn’t dare brush it away. His mouth feels gritty and dry, so he sucks on his own tongue to try to build up some spit and wash it out. Everything smells faintly of blood and gunpowder and Jesper wonders, just for a second, if he’s actually been shot already.

Kaz examines his boot, which is noticeably cleaner than the other one. Then he steps forward and presses the sole of it straight on Jesper’s cock, heel still resting on the ground. Jesper breathes in shakily through his nose, and Kaz grinds down with his boot, making jagged little sparks of pleasure run through Jesper’s belly. He closes his eyes, and then something warm and very solid nudges at his mouth roughly.

“Open your eyes, Fahey,” Kaz commands, and Jesper’s eyes open like they have strings attached. The barrel of the gun is pressed against Jesper’s lips, and Kaz is staring down it like he’s aiming at a target. “Mouth too, if you want to keep your teeth.”

Jesper barely manages to get his mouth open in time before the barrel of his revolver is shoving in. It’s unwieldy, stiff, solid, unbending. Jesper wonders briefly, in some spare corner of his mind, if he could raise his hands and twist it into some other shape. Something easier to take. The barrel is all sharp parts and smooth lines, things that are great when shooting with it, but much harder when trying to swallow it. Kaz pushes, and the barrel clacks against Jesper’s teeth painfully. Jesper winces and his body tries to pull away, even as his mind whispers _stay. Stay and take this._

Kaz stares him down. His thumb rests on the safety, which is still off. His finger is hooked in the trigger guard, firmly on the trigger. His eyes are past that coffee color and straight into black. There is not a shred of mercy in him, and Jesper knows that he could die, here and now, if Kaz Brekker wanted him to.

Kaz grinds his foot down again. Pleasure surges through Jesper’s cock and into his belly again. It hurts, and it’s rough, and it feels incredible. Dirty and low, this is where he’s brought Kaz. This is where Kaz has brought him.

Kaz’s finger strokes the trigger, then thrusts the revolver gently. It tries to find the back of Jesper’s throat and Jesper, too caught up grinding up against Kaz’s boot, doesn’t have the forethought to stop it. It scrapes him and chokes him and hurts and he feels so connected to it. His revolver, inside him, as close as he can get without carving his chest open and keeping it inside him like another organ.

There’s a loud noise in Jesper’s ears and adrenaline floods through Jesper, making him twitch all over. He’s sure it’s the gun, but he glances to the side and it was just Kaz dropping his cane on the floor. Kaz’s other hand is on the revolver too, now, spinning the cylinder. Jesper’s body reacts on a subconscious, visceral level. He is so alert and present and quiet. He is nowhere and nothing but now.

The cylinder stops spinning. Jesper looks up. He doesn’t remember if he reloaded his guns yet. He can’t see if the chambers are full. Kaz grins, and it is cold.

Kaz pulls the trigger. A loud, almost metallic banging click shakes Jesper’s teeth.

Jesper bucks up against Kaz’s boot and comes in his trousers.

It takes him a long time to realize his eyes are closed, and a few more seconds to open them. He stares at the blurry Kaz in front of him and blinks a few times until he coalesces into a person again. Kaz is still looking down at him, and if he looked anything, it would be cold amusement.

He pulls the revolver roughly out of Jesper’s mouth and drops it on the ground, then steps back. The pressure lifts off of Jesper’s cock and Jesper gasps and tries not to curl forward and squirm at how raw everything feels now. Kaz holds out his other fist and uncurls his fingers, one by one. Six bullets tumble down between Jesper’s thighs, clinking against each other.

Kaz picks up his cane and turns to head upstairs without a word. Jesper watches him go, trapped on his knees, unable to move. His lip is split and he pokes at it with his tongue. His mouth tastes like iron again, the real kind that means being alive, having survived, and it tastes good.

 

~

 

In dreams, it goes like this:

Jesper is laughing, and so is Kaz. Kaz Brekker, who minutes before had been serious and furious, burning down everything in his path in a fight after a job, all steel eyes and well placed whacks with his cane, is laughing, open mouthed, his eyelashes wet, because the adrenaline is so strong that even he can’t bleed it from himself.

Jesper is laughing too, but it doesn’t take a lot to make Jesper laugh. Jesper laughs when he loses a hand of cards, when he brushes against a beautiful girl in a pub, when he nearly walks into a pole because he was too busy watching Kaz’s hands turn tricks with coins. Jesper lives on adrenaline like water, but Kaz is much harder to flap.

It’s just the two of them, no second second because Rotty’s gone out to the pleasure houses to celebrate his cut - twenty five percent of the eighty that was left after Kaz pulled for Per Haskell. Jesper gets another twenty five and Kaz gets fifty because he masterminded it. It’s still a decent stack of kruge and Jesper has never complained - he likes the jobs almost more than the money he gets afterwards.

But Kaz is laughing and it lights Jesper’s blood on fire. They’re stumbling up the stairs together - Jesper got a hard punch to the knee and he’s still not walking quite right - and Kaz lets Jesper fall into his rooms on the highest floor. Jesper staggers into Kaz’s chair and Kaz drops the heavy bag of kruge onto his desk, then limps over to the beat up looking dresser in his tiny bedroom and digs out a cloth. He gets it wet and rubs the blood off his face with it, then tosses a second one to Jesper. Jesper catches it with a wet slap and scrubs at his split knuckles, and then he looks up and Kaz is there. Kaz reaches past him and grabs the bag and upturns folds and folds of kruge. Waves of slippery pale purple rush out all over the desk. Kaz plunges his hands into the pile and lets out a long, satisfied breath, and then he laughs again. He looks at Jesper and his eyes are bright in a way they almost never are.

“Congratulations,” Jesper says, for something to say. Kaz’s eyes are pinning him to the chair and he can’t look away to examine the office that he’s never been in before. “You did it.”

“You did it too,” Kaz says. His harsh voice is a little softer than usual, or maybe Jesper is making it up.

“It was your idea,” Jesper points out.

“Of course it was. It’s always my idea,” Kaz says. “But still. You did well.”

Something hot and big and expansive blooms inside Jesper’s chest. Praise from Kaz is few and far between, and praise so explicit as this is even rarer. Jesper can count the number of times that Kaz has complimented him honestly on one hand, but Kaz is staring him down, his eyes wide and honest. “Yeah?” Jesper asks, his voice betraying him, letting Kaz know just how much he wants to hear that he’s good.

Kaz studies him for a moment, and likes what he sees, or else doesn’t mind it, because he nods. “Yes,” he says. “You had my back, and Rotty’s. And you’re an amazing shot.”

One gloved hand settles on Jesper’s shoulder, the other still buried in kruge. There are a thousand different pale purple bills that Kaz could be looking at right now, but instead, he’s looking at Jesper.

Jesper swallows, and then swallows again. His heart is hammering harder against his ribcage than it was when he was getting shot at. Kaz’s grip on his shoulder tightens, and then his hand leaves the kruge and grips Jesper’s other shoulder. Their faces are barely six inches apart when Kaz says, “You were so good for me.”

Jesper shudders and he grips Kaz by the front of his waistcoat and tugs him forward. Kaz stumbles and his knees brace on either side of Jesper’s thighs and Jesper presses his forehead against Kaz’s sternum. He smells like sweat and leather and money and salt and Jesper isn’t ashamed of how deeply he inhales against Kaz’s chest, trying to trap as much of that scent as possible in his own lungs.

“You like that,” Kaz notes. One hand shifts from Jesper’s shoulder to the back of his neck, thumb stroking idly in circles. “You want that.”

Jesper nods. He’s too drunk on Kaz’s touch and praise to care how easy he is. He handles praise from Kaz about as well as liquor, which is to say, not in the slightest.

Kaz’s breath fans out over Jesper’s hair, and then down his forehead. Kaz’s lips brush against Jesper’s temple and the shell of his ear and he whispers, “You’re so good.”

Jesper grits his teeth and groans and tugs harder at Kaz’s clothes. Kaz falls inelegantly into Jesper’s lap, and then somehow makes it seem like it’s where he meant to be. He drapes his arms around Jesper’s shoulders and Jesper shudders at the heavy weight of him. It feels so good to have Kaz on top of him, around him, to feel leathery blunt fingers scrape through the hair at the nape of his neck. To see Kaz’s smirk above him, still cool because Kaz will never be warm, but not cold.

“There’s a good boy,” Kaz murmurs and rolls his hips down. Jesper gasps and then buries his face in Kaz’s shoulder. He can’t look at Kaz’s face, not right now, but then Kaz is digging fingers up under his jaw and forcing his head up again. Kaz holds his head still so he can’t look away, and squeezes tighter when Jesper keeps his eyes closed. “Look at me.”

It takes a moment of breathing, but Jesper’s eyes open. He looks up at Kaz, over at the kruge which is sliding off the desk and onto the ground, back up at Kaz. He opens his mouth but there’s nothing to say other than _more, please, again._

Kaz sees it, and his smirk widens a little. It feels like being seen through. “There’s a good boy,” he repeats. One hand strokes down Jesper’s cheek. “There’s _my_ good boy.”

Jesper surges up and slams their mouths together. Just once, hard and messy and fast, and then he falls back. Kaz stares at him, looking– not quite shocked, maybe a little taken aback. Jesper’s mouth is stuck open, preparing for an apology that just won’t come, and then suddenly his mouth is filled with Kaz as Kaz drops his head down and catches Jesper’s jaw in both hands and kisses him again.

Kaz kisses like Jesper would expect him to, demanding and dominating, setting the pace and not waiting for Jesper to catch up. Jesper’s fingers curl tightly in Kaz’s waistcoat, squeezing so hard it hurts, like he’s scared that Kaz is going to float away and Jesper will be left empty and alone, thighs still warm from Kaz’s body heat. Kaz is full of sharp teeth that bite at Jesper’s lips and a sharp tongue that teases Jesper’s mouth open wider and tastes the gunpowder that flows in Jesper’s veins. Kaz’s lips move, forming the words _so good_ so that Jesper can taste them, and Jesper groans shakily and tugs Kaz’s slender hips down into his own. He lets his palms span over Kaz’s hipbones and _feel_ him; the muscles on one side are thicker and heavier than the ones on the other, thanks to Kaz’s limp. The material of Kaz’s trousers is rougher than it looks, and Jesper would bet there are several knives hidden in them. But none of them are digging into him right now, so he supposes that it doesn’t matter where they end up.

Kaz draws back for a second, breathing hard, and Jesper hadn’t quite caught how much Kaz was affected too, but he’s flushed and there’s a sheen of swear over his lips that Jesper wants to lick away. But on top of that, he looks incredibly self satisfied, like this is what he wanted all along. Jesper hopes with a pulse of heat all through his body that it is.

“So good,” Kaz murmurs again, and he grins, sharklike, at the shudder that rolls through Jesper’s body and out through his hips. “You just want to be good.”

“Yeah,” Jesper breathes. “Just for you, Kaz.”

“Just for me, Jes. Just for me.” And then Kaz is kissing him again, rocking down in Jesper’s lap in awkward, clumsy thrusts. He only has one leg for leverage, so Jesper helps him, wrapping his arms around Kaz’s hips and pulling him against Jesper like water on the rocks of Fifth Harbor, over and over again. And it’s good, it’s so good, because it’s not like sneaking off with a girl in the back halls of the Crow Club; no, it’s crashing into another solid body at top speed and riding the energy the collision makes, letting it singe his skin and burn his organs. He digs his way into Kaz, and Kaz has long since burrowed under Jesper’s skin and lit him on fire with money and jobs and long, unbroken stares that let Jesper know that Kaz _knows_ and it’s not a secret worth keeping. It’s not the same secret that Kaz has, but maybe it’s similar.

Kaz gets a hand between them, gets Jesper out and then himself, strokes them off together with hot, sticky leather, but Jesper hardly cares. He knows the feeling of overheated skin against skin, but he doesn’t know the feeling of Kaz on top of him nearly as well as he wants to. He doesn’t know the sweat that beads along Kaz’s hairline, the way Kaz’s breath tastes on a sharp exhale, the scar on the inside of Kaz’s lip that Jesper becomes acquainted with. He barely knows the sound of Kaz panting in his ear, whispering _“so good, you were so good, you were incredible, so good for me”_ and breaking on every fifth word as his arm works between them.

Now he knows the feeling of burying his cry in Kaz’s shirt collar as he comes. Now he knows the low sounds that Kaz makes in his throat, sounds Jesper can feel with his nose pressed against Kaz’s throat as well as hear. Now he knows the precise twitches that run from Kaz’s hips all the way up his body and the way he throws his head back with a hiss when heat rushes between them. Jesper’s vest is ruined. Jesper couldn’t care less.

Kaz slumps a little when he finishes, panting against Jesper’s forehead. He tries to balance against Jesper and Jesper tries to help him up, but Kaz’s weight isn’t evenly balanced and they both end up tipping onto the floor, Kaz on his back and Jesper on top of him. Jesper freezes for a moment, but then Kaz starts laughing again, and Jesper does too, and they stay in a heap on the floor, laughing on top of the dregs of the pile of kruge that’s still sitting uncounted on the desk.

“If I’d known you were so easy to please, I would have told you you were good earlier,” Kaz says. He shoves Jesper off of his bad leg, but not far. Jesper leans his forehead against Kaz’s shoulder and laughs again.

“You wouldn’t have meant it.”

“Might’ve,” Kaz says, reaching for a fold of money with his free arm, and somehow, Jesper believes him.

 

~

 

In reality, it goes like this:

Jesper wakes with a sweating, shaking start, aching all through his belly, the pants he wears to sleep soaked through the front once again. He lifts the blanket and winces - the spot is large tonight. Shiny with how wet it is. Recent. He tries to remember what he’d been thinking about the second before he woke up: heavy boots, the strong scent of leather everywhere, a gloved thumb pressing down on Jesper’s tongue, making saliva bead around the seams of the stitching and leak down Jesper’s lip. A soft, cruel laugh, a drop of something sliding down Jesper’s temple. An ache, so furious it may have just been pain. A fire, so hot that it may have been ice water, keeping him so forcibly present.

The wet spot twitches. He’s still hard.

Jesper curses under his breath.

He glances at Wylan. Wylan is turned away from him, some nine inches away in the massive bed they sometimes share. The blanket is tugged high on his shoulders, but his hair is poking out of the top, a faded slash of color in the dark. His shoulder rises and falls with his breathing. Jesper watches him for a moment, as if _Wylan_ of all people would make him _less_ hard. He should picture Inej instead - not that she isn’t beautiful, but she would be so unimpressed.

_Just like he was._

Jesper’s cock twitches, again, and he swears, again. The wetness in his sleep pants is starting to cool, making him unpleasantly sticky and moist in ways he’d rather not be. He feels something vaguely akin to shame. A cousin, maybe. Jesper feels shame about few things, and this isn’t usually one of them, but he still tries to creep out of bed anyway, trying not to wake–

“Jes?”

Damn.

“Go back to sleep, Wy, it’s late.”

“Early.” The Wylan-shaped lump wiggles around and Wylan’s face appears, blinking blearily at Jesper. Jesper is on his feet, standing next to the bed like some sort of awkward body guard with come in his pants.

Wylan tells him as much.

“I _know_ that. I was trying to clean up.”

“Should’ve let me help,” Wylan says, and yawns. “Third time in the last two weeks. You’re running up so much extra laundry.”

Jesper winces. “Do they ask?”

“Why would they ask?”

Jesper frowns, then goes to the table at the side of the bed where they keep a fresh pitcher of water every night. He pulls a cloth from a drawer and shimmies out of his pants, determinedly not looking at the inside of them as he kicks them away. His bare thighs are wet too, and his hips. He must have been squirming before he woke up.

Wylan sits up in bed, shuffling back to lean against the headboard. He reaches over and lights one of the lamps so that Jesper can see, but that means Jesper has to look at his half hard cock and the come that’s smeared in his pubic hair as he wipes himself down.

“What was it tonight?” Wylan asks.

“I don’t remember,” Jesper replies, too fast.

“That sounds like a lie.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jesper says flatly.

In the corner of his eye, Wylan’s expression shutters a little, and then smooths again. “Alright.”

He keeps watching Jesper, though, as Jesper cleans himself up as well as he can. He doesn’t have another pair of pants to sleep in, so he borrows Wylan’s, which are too loose and much too short, but better than nothing, unless Kaz comes back in Jesper’s sleep and makes him ruin these as well. Jesper hangs the cloth on the edge of the table, then turns back to the bed. Wylan holds an arm out. Jesper crawls into bed and settles himself against Wylan’s chest, his head tucked under Wylan’s chin. Wylan reaches behind them and extinguishes the lamp, and then his fingers tangle in Jesper’s hair. Jesper makes a soft noise and shame’s cousin knocks at his doors.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Wylan asks softly. Without judgement. Not a threat, not trying to twist information out of Jesper, not that Wylan is good at it anyway. Not that Jesper really keeps secrets from him.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“How come?”

That makes Jesper pause. How come? Wylan is a young man, he’s had dreams too, in front of Jesper no less. Jesper has been fascinated by the way Wylan moves when he’s asleep, being pleasured in his mind. But he usually wakes Wylan up and takes care of things himself, which Wylan seems to enjoy much more.

If there’s only the cousin of shame in the room with them, then why do Jesper’s cheeks flush even darker when he thinks about dreaming? What kind of familial lineage would let Jesper come clean, tell Wylan that he’s dreamed for years of Kaz cutting him down and quieting him and severing his nerve endings to twist them in his own image? Even now, when he knows, vaguely, why Kaz wears gloves, knows that he could no more touch Jesper’s cock than reach down his own throat and give Jesper his own still-beating heart, knows that Kaz does not think of people that way, not least of all him, and that Kaz has barely knitted their trust back together again. Even now, when Jesper wakes up shivering and aching and desperate like he was when he first moved into the Slat and he saw Kaz’s fingers curled around a cane and wanted to kiss them.

“I’m– I’m not an honorable man, Wylan,” Jesper says.

“Well, of course I know _that_ ,” Wylan says.

“They’re not dreams to share. Not with anyone.”

“Alright,” Wylan says, agreeably enough. Jesper can tell he’s still curious, but not enough to press. Wylan is different from Kaz like that; Wylan isn’t desperate to know. “Were they about me, at least?”

“Sometimes,” Jesper says, which is true. He dreams of Wylan often, usually after Fabrikator lessons when his body is humming with intended purpose and his brain is clear of sickness. Then he dreams of Wylan, kissing him sweetly and taking him apart and smacking his cheeks with cheerful laughs and nuzzles and deep, rolling thrusts like thunder. Those dreams often turn into memories.

“Well, that’s better than nothing.” Wylan rubs his cheek against the top of Jesper’s head. “Go back to sleep, Jes. You can haunt your demons in the morning.”

Jesper freezes.

“You say his name in your sleep, sometimes,” Wylan says, in the same tone.

“Wylan–”

“It’s okay. He has very good cheekbones.”

Jesper barks out a laugh at that. It’s true– Kaz’s face is chiseled from good genetics and not enough sleep, bones sharp enough to cut rope. And he can let Wylan think that it’s Kaz only in Wylan’s place, with sweet touches and kisses and a regular bedroom, not the world on fire around them.

“He does,” he agrees, then snuggles tighter against Wylan’s chest. Wylan makes a low, pleased noise and squeezes Jesper around the shoulders, then relaxes. Jesper listens to his breath as it slows and slows and settles, feels his heart beat steadily in his chest, a comforting rhythm. Shame sits outside the door, but Jesper has the key and he locks it back for another night and he sleeps as well.

**Author's Note:**

> tw in the second section for face slapping, kaz whacking jesper with his cane, kaz aiming a gun at jesper, and jesper with a gun barrel in his mouth. all is consensual (since it's a fantasy) and greatly enjoyed by jesper because he's got one hell of a masochistic streak


End file.
